


amarte como te amo es complicado

by thesilverwitch



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-16
Updated: 2014-08-02
Packaged: 2018-02-09 02:47:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1966050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesilverwitch/pseuds/thesilverwitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carra was, unfortunately and never to be said out loud, right. Alonso wasn’t going to bite. He was going to be their new Chaser, alongside Stevie and Fernando, and he was going to be a brilliant addition to the team. Together they would reach first place in the League and win the European Cup. Everyone was going to love Stevie as Captain and everything was going to be fine, no need to worry at all. Yes, that was exactly what was going to happen.</p><p>Quidditch!AU where Xabi Alonso is Liverpool Horntails' new chaser.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Old Sodden

**Author's Note:**

> Title of the fic comes from the same song Xabi quotes in the middle of the fic, [Darte un Beso](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdOXnTbyk0g) by Prince Royce.

“Stop fidgeting.”

“I’m not fidgeting.”

“You are. You keep messing with your hair and you’ve fixed your cloak at least ten times already,” said Carra, grabbing Stevie’s hand before he could pull at his cloak again. “Don’t see why you’re so nervous. This Alonso guy ain’t gonna bite.”

“I know that,” Stevie huffed. “I’m just…” he trailed off, unsure of what he wanted to say.

He was what? Worried, for the most part, and a little scared that the newest addition to their team would prove to be a colossal mistake. Their last season had been, excuse his French, absolute shit, with the team finishing in seventh—bloody _seventh_ —in the British and Irish Quidditch League and not getting anywhere in the international competitions.

To top it all off, Sami had finally decided to hang up his broom and retire at the end of the last season, shoving the Captain title onto Stevie’s lap. It was a great honour, obviously, Stevie had been ecstatic when he found out. It was only later, when he realised it was now his job to pull his team back to glory, and subsequently, his fault if if they failed, that his happiness was substituted by a perfunctory sense of worry.

He’d been reassured multiple times this wasn’t true. That just because he was Captain, it didn’t mean he was the one to be blamed for everything, but tell that to Stevie’s brain. He was a flobberworm, powerless and beyond useless.

Carra hit him in the back of the head with the heel of his hand.

“Stop it. You’re making me worry too, and no offence, but I’d rather get a couple of doxies as pets than turn into you, Stevie.”

“Thanks,” said Stevie dryly, rolling his eyes and adjusting his cloak for the last time before he fixed his hands on his lap.

Carra was, unfortunately and never to be said out loud, right. Alonso wasn’t going to bite. He was going to be their new Chaser, alongside Stevie and Fernando, and he was going to be a brilliant addition to the team. Together they would get to first place in the League and win the European Cup. Everyone was going to love Stevie as Captain and everything was going to be fine, no need to worry at all. Yes, that was exactly what was going to happen.

Just as Stevie was about to tell Carra this and reassure his friend he felt fine now, was totally done with excessively worrying, fidgeting and spending whole nights awake thinking about all the mean chants the fans were going to make about him, Rafa came in with a another man in tow. He looked about Stevie’s height, his hair a soft brown color with a light red tinge. Stevie recognized him, even though he looked nothing like he did in the picture Stevie saw in a Spanish newspaper that took over than a week to find. This was probably due to the fact that, at the moment, Alonso looked like he’d fallen into the ocean, managed to get out after a good ten minutes fighting against the currents, only to be thrown in again by the cold-blooded hands of misery.

English weather sure knew how to welcome a man to its country.

“Stevie, Carra, this is Xabi Alonso, Liverpool Horntails’ newest addition.”

Carra managed to get up before Stevie and he was the first one to shake Xabi’s hand. Stevie waited behind him, not fidgeting in the slightest, before he reached forward and gave Xabi his best smile, which the rest of the team described as an awkward doggy grin, but Stevie would be damned if he paid attention to what a bunch of Quidditch players with ‘90s haircuts said about him.

“Nice to meet you, mate. I’m Steven Gerrard, but everyone calls me Stevie,” he said, shrugging to say _yes, Stevie is a stupid nickname, but it’s mine and it’d be pointless to try changing it_.

“Xabi Alonso,” he smiled shyly at Stevie and looked down at his shoes immediately afterwards.

Stevie wondered if he was acting like that because he was nervous about meeting him and Carra, or if it was because he looked like a drowned puffskein. Both, probably.

“Xabi here had a bit of trouble getting here, Apparated some ten miles away in the middle of the muggles. Luckily no one saw him, but, well,” Rafa waved at Xabi, who seemed to be trying to create a hole beneath his feet. “Let’s just say getting here was no easy task.”

Stevie and Carra chuckled at the joke, but Xabi’s lips didn’t even twitch. Rafa patted him on the back and turned to Stevie, “Get him to his flat, will you? I’ve got to take care of some paperwork, and that way you can show him around.”

Carra and Rafa said their goodbyes, patting both Stevie and Xabi in the back, as if both of them needed that extra touch of reassurance. Stevie glared at them for it before he turned to Xabi, who was still staring at the ground like it held the answer to all the secrets in the world.

Right. Well. This should be fun.

“Is that your stuff?” asked Stevie, pointing to the black leather bag by the door. At least the contents inside were dry.

Xabi nodded, giving his bag a quick glance. Before Stevie could stop himself, his inner captain voice had him clapping his hands and shouting, “Alright then! Let’s get you to your flat.”

He sounded far too cheerful. If Alex or any of the others were there, they’d be laughing at him, telling him to save the routine for their games, but, and this bore repeating, as much as Stevie loved his teammates, he had it on good authority that ignoring ninety percent of all they said was the best way to go about life.

He grabbed Xabi’s bag, which was lighter than it looked, and headed towards the entrance of the stadium with all the fireplaces. He’d have to show Xabi Anfield in another day, maybe tomorrow if the rain let up by then.

“You’ll be staying in the magical part of the city. Most of the team lives there, and I think Pepe is your upstairs neighbour, so that should be fun. I could introduce the two of you later, if you’d like, or you could just wait until practice on Monday to meet everyone. The neighbourhood is called Old Sodden, it’s named after a wizard… that you probably neither know or care about,” finished Stevie clumsily. He scratched the back of his head as he gave Xabi a sidelong look.

Xabi was giving him a vacant look of polite interest, reminding Stevie of the existence of a little something called ‘language barrier’. It stood between them and meant that Xabi probably hadn’t understood half of what he’d said. Pepe or Fernando should be here, Stevie thought. They would be able give Xabi a proper welcome to the Liverpool Horntails that didn’t include a bath by the rain and a scouse captain speaking into the air.

Too late for that now.

“Ok, so, Old Sodden,” said Stevie. This part they should be able to get right between them even with the Scouse-Spanish barrier.

“Old Sodden,” repeated Xabi, only it sounded more like _Ól Sodén_ in his thick Spanish accent. Stevie knew from personal, drunken experience that the fireplaces handled accents as well as he handled losing, which was to say not well at all.

Stevie repeated the name a couple of times, with Xabi repeating it after him, but it was pointless. The words refused to fit around Xabi’s tongue and with each playback Xabi seemed to get more and more annoyed at himself. He was also starting to shiver from the cold, little tremors that made his hands shake and his teeth knock together.

“Alright, time for plan B,” said Stevie.

He extended his hand for Xabi to take, and Xabi seemed to get this part easily, since he didn’t ask any questions before he grabbed it. Stevie flashed him a nervous smile and said, “Don’t throw up,” before he closed his eyes and focused on the front door of Xabi’s flat.

He hated Apparating, it always made him fear that his arms had been ripped apart and glued back on the wrong places. He figured by the slight green tint on Xabi’s face he wasn’t alone on this one.

Stevie put a hand on his shoulder to steady him, and Xabi gave him a thankful smile before looking away. It took Stevie a few seconds to remember he was still holding Xabi’s hand with his other hand, and he dropped both of them at the same time, coughing as he tried to hide his embarrassment. Smooth, Gerrard. Butter smooth.

Xabi’s flat was a small, one-bedroom place with a kitchenette connecting to the living room, both of them with a view towards Hedy Lamarr Park. The walls were a weak yellow colour and the floor was in hardwood, giving the whole flat a cozy look.

Copper Street, where all the main shops were, was only two streets behind them. Far away enough that the noise didn’t reach Xabi’s windows, but close enough to walk there in less than three minutes. The ocean was a twenty minute walk away, and the muggle city about ten. It was a pretty good place, overall. Small, but nicely located and with no dust bunnies or cockroaches crawling about.

“Your cupboards are probably empty, so we could go out to restock them, maybe grab a bite to eat as well if you’d like,” Stevie coughed again. He hoped to all hell he didn’t sound as awkward as he felt. From the look of the small smile Xabi gave him, his hopes were most likely in vain.

“I would like, but I should, _cómo se dice_ ,” Xabi bit his lip and ducked his head as he tried to find the word he was looking. “ _Ducharse_?" Stevie gave him a flat look, so Xabi tried again. "Err, _cuarto de baño_?”

He looked at Stevie a little hopelessly, who looked back just as hopelessly. He’d been around Nando and Pepe speaking in Spanish numerous times, but their conversations always went completely over his head. After a couple of frustrated seconds, Xabi pulled at the bottom of his wet shirt and let it flap against his body.

“Oh, you mean like change clothes and shower? Right, of course. The bathroom is over here,” said Stevie, opening the door. “I’ll just wait here then.”

Xabi took his bag with him to the bathroom, and Steve settled down on the sofa facing the window. This was what he disliked the most about wizard flats. They didn’t have any electricity, which consequently meant no television. Usually Stevie would use this time to go through people’s bookshelves or look around, but Xabi’s flat was barren saved for the most basic furniture. He ended up apparating at his flat to grab them two umbrellas.

As he was about to leave, one of the books in his thin and a little crooked bookshelf caught his eye. He picked it up and refused to think about what he was doing before he apparated back into Xabi’s flat.

When Xabi came out of the shower he looked... nice. Clean. Not looking like any kind of drowned pet. Stevie gave him a subtle once over as Xabi backed into his bedroom to put his bag away. Nope. Definitely not any kind of drowned animal.

“I got you something.”

He shoved the book onto Xabi’s hands before he could think about what he was doing. He didn’t recall ever seeing Sami give anyone any books, but it looked like a nice thing to do. A different way of saying _Welcome to Liverpool, it might seem like everything sucks here, what with the rain and the cold, but we also have nice things like this book I just gave you_.

It would be a miracle if Xabi got all that from Stevie’s twitching and awkward smile, but a man had to try.

“It’s from one of my favourite authors, Terry Pratchett, and this other bloke. It’s an end of the world story, but funny with angels and demons,” he tried to get a read on Xabi, but he was still looking down at the book cover. “It’s really good, been one of my favourites for years now. I thought you might want something to do, since there’s not much here to keep your entertained right now.”

Stevie had no doubts this time. He definitely sounded as awkward as he felt. Terrific. And they still had at least another hour of socialising to go as Stevie showed him around.

In Stevie’s defence, he normally wasn’t _this_ socially awkward. Granted, he wasn’t amazing either, but usually it only took him a couple of minutes to warm up to someone. Alex had once described him as a blind social butterfly, meaning he could get around, but always bumped into a couple of things along the way. Today, however, he seemed to have crashed at full speed into the impenetrable walls of Gringotts while wearing nothing but his Doctor Who pants.

Stevie was about to blurt out something like ‘I’m normally not this much of an idiot’ when Xabi looked up.

“Thank you. I was nervous when I arrived, but I am happy to be here with you and the team and I…” he glanced away from Stevie into the window, mumbling a few words in Spanish before he grinned and continued, “appreciate you helping me and,” he made a circular motion with his hand, “showing me around.”

“No problem. I’m glad to be of some use,” said Stevie, making both of them chuckle.

After that everything was easier, the pieces finally having clicked between them. He showed Xabi around Old Sodden, giving him a small tour of the main street, the best restaurants and pubs. Xabi laughed at all of Stevie’s jokes, even the bad ones, and he shared one or two stories as well about wizard life in San Sebastián, with only a few pauses in search for the right words.

“Your English is really good. When Pepe got here he only knew words for food and drinks and Nando even had to take English classes or we were all fucked,” said Stevie, taking a sip of his butterbeer.

Xabi’s eyes crinkled as he laughed into his hand. “I studied in Ireland when I was younger. I know the language, but sometimes the words, they escape me.”

“You’ve been doing a really great job so far.”

“Thank you,” replied Xabi, the right corner of his lips tugging up in a soft smile.

They were sat in a corner table of the Blue Wand, Xabi’s shopping bags at their feet. They’d mostly bought food, as well as a couple of books and a broom cleaning kit, a purchase which had sparked something in Stevie’s subconscious that had him casting Xabi a judgemental look without him even realising.

“I lost mine while trying to find the stadium,” Xabi explained earlier. He’d chuckled at himself, a little embarrassed and making Stevie feel like a twat.

“It’s fine. I think I take these kind of things too seriously, anyway.”

“But you are the Captain, no? What would be of a team, if the Captain didn’t take its sport too seriously?” asked Xabi, looking all earnest and looking at Stevie with wide, fond eyes.

“Yeah,” Stevie said after a couple of seconds, “I guess you’re right.”

Stevie dropped Xabi at the front entrance of his building after they left Blue Wand to make sure he made it home alright.

“Do you live around here?” Xabi asked him.

“Nah, I live in the muggle part of the city.”

Xabi gave him a curious look and Stevie could tell he wanted to ask more, but was too polite to do so. He smirked and said, “I’m a muggle born. I’m used to electricity and cars. Not that Old Sodden isn’t great, but it’s good to be back at my roots, you know?”

“I think so,” said Xabi, and he looked like he really meant it and wasn’t simply amusing Stevie and his muggleborn habits. “Goodnight, Stevie.”

“Goodnight,” he waved and turned to leave, before he remembered something he’d thought about earlier. “Hey, do you wanna go see the stadium tomorrow? When it’s not raining buckets and everything. We can drag Pepe and whoever else we find with us.”

“I would like that.”

Stevie left to his home with a good feeling in his gut. He felt sure now, without having seen him play yet, that Xabi would be a good addition to the team.

Maybe the next season wouldn’t be so bad after all, and maybe he wasn’t so bad at this Captain thing. Maybe.


	2. Brain Prickling Potion

Stevie had only taken one step into the locker room when he saw the green shape on the floor and immediately turned around. He grabbed Xabi’s arm and dragged them both out from where they had come from, but not before closing the door and setting a locking charm on it.

“What—” Xabi was cut off by Stevie’s slightly maniacal, definitely on edge voice.

“There is a crocodile in the locker room.”

Xabi stared at him. Stevie stared back. He was far too hangover for this.

Carefully, as if attending to a bleeding animal, Xabi removed Stevie’s hand from the death grip it had on his arm, all the while staring Stevie in the eye. Then he took out his wand, opened the door and took one step in and one step out. He closed the door and locked it like Stevie had, leaning against it afterwards.

“There is a crocodile in the locker room.”

“That’s what I said.”

“I know that is what you said, but I thought you were joking or that one of your muggle machines had made you crazy overnight.”

Stevie gave Xabi a long, hard look that said ‘ _I already feel as if I’ve drank a Brain Prickling potion, do not test me Xabi Alonso Olano_ ’, which Xabi brushed off as easily as one breathed. Stevie’s captain influence had never been worth much off the pitch ever since that one time in the muggle karaoke bar, with the pole dancing, the squirrel, and the big candy machine. Stevie shuddered at the mere thought of that night and he didn’t remember half of it.

“Why is there a crocodile in there? How did it even get there?” Xabi asked, already fully past the shock phase and into the vapid curiosity phase. He was on his knees against the door, trying to catch a glimpse of the crocodile through the keyhole.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Stevie began to count with his fingers. “Could be someone’s pet, a spell gone wrong, a secret Animagus that couldn’t control their shape or some bizarre, failed plot to murder all of us. It could have some kind of camera in it, or a spell designed to make Nando’s hair turn blue. This is Liverpool Horntails’ locker room. With the team we have it could be anything, really.”

“Hey! I resent that statement,” said a cheery—far, _far_ too cheery—Pepe Reina as he looped an arm around Stevie’s shoulder and peered at Xabi in front of them.

“Pepe, why is there a crocodile in the locker room?” asked Stevie.

“You guys should have come out with us last night, instead of going to the drafty pub and drinking butterbeer in the corner like two old farts—” Pepe made a mistake of looking at his audience as he spoke.

Xabi gave him an amused look of superiority that the team had learned, over the past two months, meant he either knew something they didn’t or—and this was less likely but equally true—he was about to watch something happen that most human beings would describe as ‘horrific’ and he would describe as ‘funny’. A quick glance at his Captain, who looked like he was contemplating the most painful hex to cast on Pepe, proved the latter theory on Xabi’s look to be correct.

Stevie could tell Pepe was contemplating his options quietly and quickly. There was running. There was running while screaming at the top of his lungs. There was also running into something and passing out so he didn’t feel his torture and finally there was pushing Stevie and Xabi into the locker room with the crocodile and only running after that.

“Pepe, why is there a crocodile in the locker room?” repeated Stevie. He sounded like he was a second away from turning Pepe into a lump of meat and throwing him into the locker room. Shit. When did Stevie become scary?

“We stole it from the zoo?” said Pepe, but it came out more as question, as if he was testing each word to check how they sounded when put together.

There was a pause before Stevie asked. “Which zoo?”

“The London one?”

Stevie sighed. Xabi chuckled. Neither good signs for Pepe, who now looked like he was trying to remember what he had put on his death will. Stevie hoped Yolanda got his crystal figurines. She would never know what to do with them and it would drive Pepe mad, even after dead.

“And you decided to leave it here because?”

“Well, we were quite drunk and Alex dared Agger to fight it, and we needed space for that, obviously, so we thought ‘Why not Anfield’? Then we got here and forgot what we were doing, so we left and went to a club to get even more drunk. I was about to go return it.”

Stevie stared at him in a mix of wonder and horror. There were many complaints buzzing inside his head about things like responsibility and how they couldn’t put animals in danger, not to mention how the hell Pepe planned to inconspicuously transport a two-meter long crocodile to the London Zoo on a Thursday morning. It was Stevie’s job as Captain to handle this, but there were times when one had to look his idiot friends in the eye and just say, “Well, this is your bloody problem then. Deal with it.”

That was exactly what Stevie did before he patted Pepe on the back and left on the search for a coffee cup with a dash of honey.

“He is going to lose at least an arm to the crocodile,” said Xabi, who’d followed Stevie out.

“Good. I’m hoping he’ll call one of the other drunks and that way we can split the losses.”

Xabi laughed, either at Stevie calling someone else a drunk when he’d done a pretty good job of that himself last night, or at Stevie’s joke in general. Even after being with the team for two months and having gotten the chance to hear countless bad jokes from Stevie, he still laughed at all of them. Stevie didn’t know why he did it. Xabi was genuinely smart and could tell a good joke from a bad one, but Stevie appreciated it nonetheless.

They grabbed a cup of coffee each from the cafeteria, but as Stevie was about to go find a table Xabi grabbed his arm, leading them both to the wooden stands outside. Despite it being the beginning of August, there was still a layer of dull, grey clouds covering the sun. With the stands twenty meters above the ground with nothing shielding them from the wind, you couldn’t say Stevie was exactly comfortable there.

And yet, he didn’t voice a single word in complaint or tried to move away. He simply sat next to Xabi and drank his coffee quietly as they both looked at the empty pitch before them, with its too-green grass and the red and white Liverpool marks covering the walls.

Eventually someone was going to show up and tell them to get their asses into gear and get ready for practice, their first game was in two weeks for cock’s sake. Stevie and Xabi would both roll their eyes at whoever was yelling—as if _they_ didn’t know that—and would take a few extra seconds to move. They were cold, but they were also comfortable. It was funny how that kind of thing worked.

“How is your hangover?” asked Xabi.

“Better. I need to get you proper smashed next time, though. No fun if it’s only me dealing with the morning after.”

Xabi laughed and punched Stevie’s arm. “I do not see how me getting a headache would be fun.”

“Oh, but I do. Seeing calm and collected Xabi Alonso lose his cool composure and become a puny mortal like the rest of us lot? What a sight to see, that one.”

“Arsehole,” said Xabi, in a perfect imitation of Stevie and Carra’s Scouse accent. “I will get drunk when we win the league and the cup this year, then you can see me in my still calm, collected and cool hangover state.”

Stevie laughed but didn’t say anything, finishing his drink in silence. A couple of minutes passed until he spoke, so quietly the wind almost drowned his words. “You nervous about the game?”

“A little,” Xabi stared at his hands as he rubbed his jeans before he looked up and gave Stevie a shaky smile. “You?”

“Enough that I could crap my pants,” he said, making both of them laugh, “but I know we’re gonna win, so it’s alright.”

They would be facing the Red Caps, last year’s league winners, in a little over a week for the first game of the season. Stevie knew it was going to be a bloody hard match, but they’d been preparing for it with practice four times a week and even a week spent “team-bonding” to make sure Xabi fit in alright.

It should be noted that team-bonding for the Horntails meant getting smashed off their asses five nights in a row, finding some blackmail material on the new guy and committing at least three illegals acts—usually involving public nudity, gambling and pranks—never to be brought up.

Stevie was pretty sure Xabi was the one who got the blackmail material in the end, but he didn’t really mind. Xabi fit in well, joking along with Nando and Pepe as if he’d been friends for years, not feeling intimidated by Agger’s tattoos, talking shit with Alex and drinking Carra under the table. He was a good addition to the team, not to mention that he was amazing on the pitch.

His flight was so natural, as if the broom was an extension of him. Xabi could be seen throwing a quaffle right by Pepe’s head into the a goal post one second and flying ten centimetres off the ground the next as he spiralled through the air and dodged a bludger all on his own.

Nando tended to play more on his own, flying at fast speeds ahead of everyone else, while Sami had prefered to stay behind and defend. This meant, in the past, that Stevie was often on his own marking the midfield, but now he had Xabi with him, who was as eager to steam forward as Stevie. Their team developed a better offence that could actually save them the game if the Snitch disappeared, which was often the case even with Alex after it.

Stevie turned to Xabi and patted him on the back. “I mean it. I have a good feeling about this season with you here.”

“Thank you,” said Xabi, his cheeks tinged in pink, either from the cold or from the words, Stevie didn’t know.

They stared at each other. There were a thousand words on the tip of Stevie’s tongue, but none of them fit.

Stevie wanted to thank him for being there, for simply existing, but it was too much. They still hadn’t played a real game together, and yet Stevie already knew everything was going to work. They were going to win because Xabi was there and somehow they all fit now.

Xabi looked like he wanted to say something, too, but they were cut off by someone shouting, “Hey, chicken heads! We’ve cleared out the locker room, so if Your Royal Highnesses feel like getting dressed anytime today, you can go ahead.”

Stevie rolled his eyes. “Thank you, love. Your sweet words have touched us both dearly.”

Alex grinned at him and flipped him off. Stevie stuck out his tongue in his best impression of a child as she walked off.

Alex made lighthearted fun of everyone. She said it was the only way she had to deal with being on a team full of guys. Stevie, who had known her for years, knew the best way to react was to fight fire with fire. Xabi was new, though, and while he and Alex got along fine he still seemed a little uncomfortable by the exchange.

“Are you and her…?” he asked, making Steve let out a throaty laugh.

“No, no, Merlin’s beard, no,” he said and then quickly backtracked at the look Xabi was giving him. “Alex is lovely and we actually tried going on a date once, but it was too weird, like dating your little sister who routinely beats your ass in Quidditch. It just didn’t work. We work better on the pitch, anyway.”

Xabi made a small, “Ah,” noise, sparking Stevie’s interest.

“Why? Are _you_ interested?” he asked and he tried to make his words light, but there was a sharp edge to them, as if the air in his lungs had gotten caught for a second too long while he tried to speak.

“No,” he said, so matter-of-fact that Steve felt stunned rather than offended on Alex’s sake. “She is very nice, but not my type,” he explained.

Stevie patted his knee.“Fair enough. Come on, let’s go get dressed.”

He got up and a few seconds afterwards, Xabi followed.

 

* * *

 

They won the game against the Red Caps after the snitch went into the ocean and Red Caps' seeker was almost eaten by a shark. Alex told him she could still go after it, but it was easier for Stevie and Rooney to just settle into an extra thirty minutes of gameplay and a victory for whoever had the most points, as per Quidditch guidelines.

Xabi scored five of their goals, playing even better than Stevie had hoped he would. They celebrated by throwing him into a pond and drinking Ice Absinthe until their tongues froze off.

Stevie couldn’t remember a night when he’d been happier.

 

* * *

 

They didn’t win all their games, but they won more than they lost and it was their best season yet of the past ten years. The fans loved Xabi, just like they loved seeing Stevie take up the Captain mantle. Eventually some of the weight on Stevie’s shoulder lifted and he felt like he could breathe and sleep properly again and it was good. It was fantastic.

Every time Stevie or Xabi scored they flew to each other for a high five, which started off as a simple celebration between friends that soon turned into a ritual, almost mandatory. They scored, they high fived. It didn’t mean anything, except it did. Of course it did.

The months rolled by, one after another, at times at the pace of a tortoise and at others at the pace of a hippogriff.

The last game of December, before Christmas break, was against the Winged Comets, which they won in under twenty minutes when Alex caught the Snitch right from under John Terry’s eye.

Since most of them were leaving the next day for some vacation time with the family, they decided to skip the getting drunk in a pub after a big victory and head straight to hanging out in someone’s flat while until they were ready to call it a night.

This was perfectly fine by Stevie, even though he didn’t have any plans for tomorrow and could stay up all night if he’d like. He loved being out with his team, but sometimes it was a little too much. It was nice to be able to nurse a small beer, which everyone thought he was weird for drinking, and watch as Carra and Agger tried to convince a drunk Pepe to tattoo his head.

Alex was somewhere in the kitchen trying to make dancing nachos with Nando, which could only result in one of them burning something, up to and including the whole flat. Stevie considered stopping them, but on the small chance they did succeed, he could really go for some nachos.

Xabi was nowhere to be found, but if Stevie knew him well, and at this point Stevie was pretty sure he could say he knew Xabi Alonso fairly well, he was probably in some corner reading about the new legalisation on hand-made wands. Sober Xabi was already a bit philosophical, especially about food, his biggest love, and Quidditch, his second biggest love. However, when he drank, all the cultural wheels began to turn in his head and he became the striking picture of pretentiously profound.

Stevie loved pretentiously profound Xabi and his rants about the state of wizarding politics in San Sebastián or the treatment of fireball dragons in a small town in China. Stevie decided to go on search for him in lack of something better to do, leaving his beer on Pepe’s ancient coffee table, far away enough that no one could knock it over by accident and spill it on the plush white carpet.

As expected, Stevie found Xabi reading in the balcony.

“We not fun enough for you, lad?” he asked as sidled up to him, resting his elbows on the railing.

Xabi closed his book and turned to him with a smile on his lips. They were standing side by side, with their elbows connecting on top of the cold metal. Stevie checked the title of the book out the corner of his eye. _Cien maneras de cocinar pescado y marisco_. Not so drunk then.

There were four iron oil lamps in Pepe’s small balcony, but only the one closest to Xabi was lit. Stevie got his wand out and lit another out so that they could see each other better.

“You are all very fun,” said Xabi, and his tone implied all the ways their drunken antics were more than just fun, “but I enjoy…”

“Reading when you’re drunk?” Stevie finished for him.

Xabi cringed and shot him a pained look. “It is a weird habit.”

“It’s fine. I mean, yes, it’s weird, but it’s fine. Most people do weird shit when they’re drunk, at least what you do culturally enriches all our lives,” he said with a huge grin and a flourish of his hands that made Xabi laugh.

“‘Culturally enriching’? I have never heard that one before.”

“You know me, always looking out for your ego,” said Stevie, knocking his shoulder against Xabi’s and letting it rest there, so that they were glued together from head to toe.

Stevie caught himself staring at Xabi’s profile, like he’d caught himself many times before. He told himself it didn’t mean anything, that he was simply looking at his friend. Except he didn’t look at anyone else the same way he looked at Xabi or even half as much. He had a feeling Carra and Alex had started to notice, but neither of them had said anything yet.

He knew this wasn’t normal or acceptable. That the staring and trying to make Xabi laugh as much as possible went beyond regular friendship. That this was different and, somehow, out of Stevie’s control.

In the end, though, it didn’t matter. It was just staring and trying to make his friend happy. Stevie wasn’t going to look too deeply into what it meant. All he had to do was make a conscious effort to stop doing it before Xabi noticed and act like everything was be fine and nothing had changed, which was the truth. Staring couldn’t change anything.

“What are you most excited about seeing again when you return to Spain?” Stevie asked to change the subject.

The wizarding world had created transportation methods lightyears ahead of the inventions in the muggle world, but long-distance travelling was still a major pain in the ass, tiring both physically and mentally, which was why most people avoided it.

Xabi was about to reply something before he cut himself off and looked away in embarrassment. It took Stevie a couple seconds to connect the dots.

“You were going to say food, weren’t you!” he pointed an accusatory finger at Xabi while laughing his ass off.

Xabi, the poor guy, had the grace to look genuinely embarrassed. “Yes,” he mumbled before he jumped on the defensive, “I miss my family a lot, but I write to them every week and I’m used to living on my own. The food, however… There is nothing like it here.”

“Well then I’m happy for you, mate. You deserve the chance to stuff yourself with your precious Spanish food for a week. Just don’t get fat or we’ll have to replace you and you know how that would break everyone’s heart.”

“Including yours?” Xabi asked. He was grinning, but it wasn’t his normal grin. This one was too sharp, almost bitter.

Stevie didn’t know what it meant or how to reply without sounding painfully honest, so he got out his best smirk and said, “Of course,” in his lightest tone.

Xabi nodded and didn’t say anything. He turned his head to the other side and Stevie wondered if he’d just failed some kind of test. He hoped not, for both their sakes.

They fell into silence, broken only by the upbeat music playing inside on Pepe’s muggle speakers, until Xabi said, “Oh, I love this song!”

He turned his head up, as if he wished to sing to the stars. “ _Amarte como te amo es complicado. Pensar como te pienso es un pecado. Mirar como te miro está prohibido. Tocarte como quiero es un delito_.”

He let a couple of the lyrics slip before he shifted to look at Stevie. Even with Stevie not knowing a lick of Spanish, he knew what the next words meant. “ _Yo solo quiero darte un beso y regalarte mis mañanas_.”

He flashed Stevie an easy grin and laughed, heading inside to sing the rest of the song with Pepe and Nando. Stevie put a hand over his stomach and told it to calm the hell down. It was just a song, it was just—

Oh, who was he kidding? It was never just that. They lived in a world with dragons, dark magic and paintings with life. Things were never simple, so why should Stevie’s feelings be?

 

* * *

 

Xabi sent him a box full of Spanish delicacies a day before Christmas with a small note attached.

> _Hola Stevie! Hope you enjoy my ‘precious Spanish food’. I have gained five kilos already and they were worth it, every single one of them. Do not replace me, I would hate to break your heart._
> 
> _Abrazos, Xabi_

There was a small dish of paella protected by two different preservation spells, some dried cured Spanish ham that Stevie had heard Xabi rave about a bunch of times, a block of cheese and packet of churros.

Stevie wasn’t sure what to do with most of it, so he gave it to his mother who set them up in their dinner table alongside all their traditional English food. They were all a hit, especially the dried cured ham, and Stevie had to promise everyone he’d invite Xabi for dinner next time he had a chance.

He went home with a smile on his face that night. Two days afterwards, he stopped by an antique bookshop. He wasn’t very good at buying gifts for other people, but it was easier with Xabi.

He perused the shop for a little over an hour in the search for the perfect book. He left with a ‘60s cooking manual titled _How to Cook Magical Beasts of the XXXX Category With Only Mild Injury to The Self_. Xabi would like it, Stevie knew he would.


	3. Starthistle & Sycamore

Stevie didn’t see it happen, but he did hear it. A pained shout, a collective gasp from the crowd and then a dull _thud_ sound as something hit the ground. He pulled his broom to the left, already dreading what he was about to see, and still the shock hit him like a tsunami wave. Time slowed down, air crawled its way into his lungs as if it was being forced down and for just one second, all of reality stopped.

All eyes were on the ground, focused on the motionless figure of Xabi Alonso, sprawled on the ground with his spine twisted the wrong way and both his legs backwards. There was a small pool of blood beginning to form behind his legs.

Stevie felt a rush of bile hit the back of his throat.

Agger was the first to get to him, followed by Stevie who felt his knees creak in protest while he slammed onto the grass. Soon the whole team was surrounding Xabi.

“I don’t think he’s breathing,” someone said. Stevie wanted to scream at whoever it was because no, _no_ , they could not say that. 

“Check his pulse,” that was Carra. He sounded nervous. Carra was usually the last person to sound nervous.

After that they were quickly pushed aside by the healer team on standby. In less than minute, something was strapped to Xabi’s back and neck and he was lying flat on a gurney while they took out of the pitch.

“Wait, what happened?” Stevie asked. His brain was finally beginning to work. Through the blood rushing towards his ears he heard the words ‘accident’, ‘Lampard’ and ‘he fell off his broom’, all of which Stevie couldn’t for the life of him begin to digest. He rushed towards one of the healers and grabbed her arm. “Is he going to be okay?”

“We’re taking him to St. Mungo’s Hospital for the best care possible,” she said. She slipped out of Stevie’s grasp without another word, shrugging him off carefully.

It wasn’t until they’d all left the pitch that Stevie realised she hadn’t answered his question.

“That wasn’t a normal injury,” muttered Alex. She was standing on Stevie’s left side and gripping his arm tightly, as if she was afraid Stevie was going to be taken away by a gust of wind. On Stevie’s other side was Carra, who seemed to be trying to set the stadium on fire with the power of his infuriated glare.

Everyone on their team looked like that, including Stevie.

“No, it wasn’t,” he picked up his broom and stormed towards Lampard, who was huddled with his teammates a few meters away. “What the fuck did you do to him, Lampard?”

“I didn’t do anything, _Gerrard_ ,” he spit out. He sounded so derisive, as if he didn’t give a crap about what had happened to Xabi.

Stevie’s vision turned red.

He knew Lampard fairly well, they’d played together in the World Cup and had what could be described as an amicable relationship, but this was way the fuck out of line. He’d almost—he didn’t want to say it, didn’t want to think it, had to swallow to push out the words—killed Xabi and now he had the gall to lie right in Stevie’s face? 

“He was a broken doll on the floor. You don’t get that from a normal fall,” he pushed at Lampard’s shoulders, forcing Lampard to take a step back just to have Stevie following him and refusing to give him an inch of space.

“You need to bloody calm down, mate. I’m telling you, it wasn’t me. We don’t play dirty.”

Stevie sneered at the comment; the Winged Comets don’t play dirty, yeah right, next they were going to say Lampard was Merlin’s descendant. Stevie was about to take another step forward when Pepe put a hand on his shoulder and held him back.

“Come on, Stevie. The match isn’t over yet.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Steve spun around and glared at Pepe, who gave him an apologetic look, but didn’t back off.

Stevie wanted to punch him. He wanted to punch Lampard and then punch Pepe, and while he was at it punch the referee as well for not banning Lampard after whatever he’d done to Xabi. He wanted to get on his broom and fly to St Mungo’s because he couldn’t just leave Xabi there, on his own in a foreign place while a bunch of strangers played with his body as if it was playdoh.

“It’s what Xabi would have wanted.”

The way Pepe said it made it sound like Xabi was dead, but they both understood what he meant. The match wasn’t over. In Quidditch, you play until you admit defeat or the snitch was caught, and Stevie knew Xabi wouldn’t be happy with them quitting without putting up a fight first.

“Alex—”

“I got it,” she said.

He looked at her and was surprised to see the same anger he felt reflected in her eyes. He’d forgotten in his moment of blinding rage that Xabi was everyone’s friend, not just his. They all wanted to win this for him and so they could go to the hospital as quickly as possible. It was hard to find a source of motivation to win better than this one.

“Nando, clear her tail. I’ll hold up the defence. We’re already ahead so there’s no point in focusing on the points. Let’s just finish this so we can get the hell out of here.”

Before they got on their brooms, Stevie couldn’t help turning around and shouting at Lampard. “This isn’t over.”

To say the rest of the game was tense was probably the understatement of the century.

The Horntails, like most Quidditch clubs, weren’t known for holding an exceedingly strong defence. Usually the teams distributed their positions equally so as to make the game a little fun, but fun was quite possibly the last thought on Stevie’s mind right now. He saw Rafa give him a nod from the stands, to which Stevie nodded back even though he couldn’t care less what Rafa thought of their new tactic.

They were going to win this game, even if that meant playing ugly. 

Everyone kept their new positions, with Nando trailing Alex to make sure the Winged Comets seeker didn’t get too close and Stevie holding up the defence. It wasn’t a guaranteed win, but Stevie trusted Alex’s skills and with reason. She caught the Snitch twenty minutes later and the game ended with little celebration.

The first thing Rafa said to him when he landed in the entrance to the locker rooms was, “It wasn’t Lampard. Some fan cast a knee-reversal hex on his friend—I know, I know, fucking kids—and he missed and hit Xabi, who was flying close to Lampard at the time and crashed into him by accident.”

Everyone stopped to dumbfoundedly stare at Rafa.

“Seriously?” asked Agger, voicing everyone’s thoughts, because that was just so incredibly ridiculous it was entirely believable.

A knee-reversal hex. Brilliant if cast alright and an absolute nightmare if cast perfectly.

Stevie had always hated it, even when it was the most popular hex in Hogwarts and everyone and their moms kept talking about how ‘cool’ it was. Stevie, who spent a lot of time in the infirmary as the the captain of the Hufflepuff Quidditch team looking out for his squad, had a different opinion on the matter. Way too many kids showed up looking like crap because of it, and it was a wonder the Ministry never banned it.

“And we’re sure it was on accident?” asked Alex. She’d always had a cynical streak in her. It was one of the many qualities that made her an amazing person and a trusty friend.

“It was one of ours,” Rafa shrugged. He seemed as uncomfortable with this answer as Stevie was. A Horntail fan or not, this was still not okay. “There’s a commission looking into it already. Now we can stay here and chat, or we can go to St Mungo’s and loiter their reception until they give us some news on Alonso. What do you all prefer?”

Easy question, easy answer. Stevie always knew he liked Rafa for a reason.

They get to St Mungo’s in ten minutes, still in their Quidditch uniforms and missing Nando, who’d disappeared to Merlin knew where after pronouncing St. Mungo’s wrong due to his new lack of two front teeth, courtesy of the Winged Comet’s seeker. Agger volunteered to go search for him and they all agreed that was a smart decision. A wild Fernando roaming the streets of England with missing teeth and a horrible haircut was begging for trouble.

At least with Agger, they’d made it double and actually stand a chance of winning.

A healer came in as soon as they arrived and pointed them towards the waiting area. “Mr. Alonso is on the fourth floor currently under the care of two of our best healers. We’ll notify you when we have any news.”

“Wait,” said Stevie. “How do you not have any news yet? He’s been here for an hour.”

“I’m sorry, sir, but there’s nothing I can tell you.”

Stevie glared at her until Carra forced him to sit in one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs that seemed to decorate every hospital in the world, muggle or magical. 

“Did she mean there is _nothing_ to tell us or there is nothing to tell _us_?” asked Pepe. Carra and Alex shot him a ‘shut the fuck up, that is not helping’ look, but Stevie just sighed and slid down his chair so that his head was tucked into a chest like a turtle.

He hated this. He’d hated hospitals ever since he was a kid and his dad got into a nasty car accident. He knew people did good work here, but everything was too depressing and sterile. Hospital were meant to be origins of life, but to Stevie they’d always felt like the harbingers of death. And now he was stuck in one of them for the next couple of hours. And he _was_ stuck, because there was no way he was leaving Xabi. 

Waiting was the worst part. Stevie was good at Quidditch, Sunday crosswords, making pasta and setting up cleaning spells on his family’s garden in their countryside house. He was not good at waiting. It made him feel utterly useless and worst of all, it gave his mind free time to roam and go back to picturing Xabi on the ground.

Stevie’s leg begun to twitch. Carra put a firm hand on it and forced it to stop.

“We just got here. You gotta wait at least one hour before you start fidgeting all over the place,” he threw a magazine onto Stevie’s lap.

_Starthistle & Sycamore_. A magazine about herbology. He saw Carra pick out _Seekers Weekly_ from the magazine pile, but didn’t protest. He’d always been fond of herbology ever since he passed it with Exceeds Expectations on his OWLs. He remembered he bombed the writing part, but aced the practical by being one of the very few who knew how to deal with the Hysterical Cabbages.

The answer was cuddling them and singing them a lullaby as if they were a baby, but he always told people they had to scream as loud as the plants did just to mess with everyone. 

He couldn’t remember ever telling Xabi that story. He’d have to when Xabi got out.

When. He refused to even think ‘if’.

The magazine was a good distraction, but not perfect. Every time someone walked in, Stevie looked up, hoping time after time it was someone bringing them news. He couldn’t help glaring at Nando and Agger when they finally showed up for not bringing any. Rationally, he knew St Mungo’s was the best hospital in England and physical injuries were easily treated with magic, but it was difficult to think rationally after seeing the shape Xabi had been in.

Stevie could admit it now. After months of staring that meant something. After going on a shopping trip to London just so Xabi could find some Korean ingredient he desperately needed to make bibimbap. After spending a night in Nando’s tiny ass bathroom making sure Xabi didn’t die with his head in a toilet. After taking Xabi on a weekend vacation to his family’s countryside house so Xabi could see the best of England, Stevie could finally admit it.

He liked Xabi. A lot. In the way he’d liked Michael Thorn from Ravenclaw when he was on his fourth year at Hogwarts. That same exact way the wizarding world frowned on from its high horse. He liked Xabi and waiting for news on his condition after seeing him close to dead was painful, excruciatingly so. Stevie could act and pretend like his feelings were just a trick of the light, flimsy, but that didn’t change the truth.

He started twitching his leg again. This time it was Pepe who stopped him.

Eventually, after about an eternity and a half, somebody came in who finally told them how Xabi was doing.

“Mr. Alonso is fine. We’ve managed to revert the effects of the hex and fix his spine. He’ll need at least a month of full rest and someone to help take care of him for the next couple of days, or he’ll have to stay here. There should be no lasting damages.”

As a group, everyone let out a sigh of relief and slumped in theirs chairs. Stevie wanted to ask why it had taken them so long to tell them this, but yelling at hospital staff never yielded any good results.

“I’ll take care of him,” he said instead.

The healer gave him a list of potions he had to buy. There was Tengo’s All Headaches Healer, which he already had at home; Bones Growth Stimulator; Extreme Bones Growth Stimulator, only for the first three days; and something called a Liquid Compass. He also told him what to do in case pain flared up unexpectedly and that he had to get someone to massage Xabi’s legs and back once every day for two weeks, or he’d have to do it himself.

That got Stevie to stop and ask, “Really?”

The healer gave him a kind, but rather unsympathetic look. He probably had to deal with much worse on a daily basis. “He won’t be able to move for a while, but you need to keep stimulating his muscles to make sure his bones heal the right way and not in reverse.”

Because of course that was a thing that could happen. Of course.

“Can we see him now?”

The healer shrugged. “He’s still mostly out of it, but you can go say hi before you sign his release papers.”

And that’s how the entire Liverpool Horntails’ team, plus a couple of staff members, found themselves in Xabi Alonso’s tiny, soft pink hospital room.

“You look like shit, mate,” said Carra. 

Everyone hummed in agreement.

“Thank you, Carra. Your honesty, as always, is deeply appreciated,” Xabi replied with his eyes closed. He seemed to be in pain, but nothing too bad. And yet, Stevie still wanted to help him, somehow. He put a hand on Xabi’s arm, a simple act, something solid to act as a reminder that he wasn’t alone.

Carra laughed and patted Xabi lightly on the shoulder, where he couldn’t do any harm. “Great to see you still have your sense of humour.”

Everyone stayed for a couple of minutes to chat and make sure Xabi was really okay and not about to collapse without warning. Stevie slipped off at some point to sign Xabi’s papers. He was a little surprised to see he was already listed as Xabi’s emergency contact, but he tried not to think too much of it. By the time he came back, everyone else had already left.

“You alright?” he asked. Xabi had told everyone he felt alright before, but Stevie knew what it was like to lie in order to reassure others.

Xabi’s shoulders tensed before he relaxed. “Not really. _Duele como el infierno y me siento como si mi estómago está tratando huir de mi cuerpo_.”

Stevie’s Spanish is rather poor, even though it has been proving the past couple of months. Some things, however, are universal, such as complaining about how shit you feel.

“I think that’s to be expected after your fall.”

Xabi cracked one eye open.

“That bad?”

Stevie hummed and sat on the armchair next to bed. “You looked like a broken ragdoll on the ground. Also you were bleeding from your head.”

“Were you worried?” Xabi asked, lifting his head up from the bed too look Stevie in the eye. Stevie pushed him back carefully.

“What do you think? I didn’t even see it happen. I just heard it and turned around and—” a small shiver ran through him, “there you were. Hell, Xabi, I didn’t even know if you were alive.”

Xabi didn’t reply. He stared at his hands, one of the few parts of his body without any bandages, for a couple of seconds before he said. “Heard you offered to take care of me. You know you don’t need to do that, right? Captain duties do not extend that far.”

“I don’t mind,” said Stevie. He stared Xabi in the eye, daring him to disagree, “but you’re staying at my place. Yours is too small and I’m not sure about how I feel about having Pepe as a neighbour,” he wrinkled his nose at the thought. Pepe had always seemed the kind of guy who liked to belt it out to bad muggle music at three in the morning.

“I’m okay with that. Yours has a nice view of the sea,” said Xabi.

“You ready to leave?” Stevie asked.

Xabi nodded and began to sit up on the bed.

Stevie thought about using _Wingardium Leviosa_ on Xabi to get him into one of the magical fireplaces, but Xabi just glared at him and told him to go find a wheelchair. When they got to Liverpool, they had to take a cab to Stevie’s place since it was in a muggle neighbourhood. 

Everything put together was a bit too much for Xabi’s body to handle. He collapsed on Stevie’s couch immediately after Stevie helped him move there.

“I’m going out to buy the potions you need. I’ll be back in ten, okay?” asked Stevie.

Xabi waved him off without even looking up, his face mashed against the cushions of Stevie’s grey couch, which wasn’t even that comfortable in all honesty. He’d bought it at IKEA on discount.

Xabi was already in deep sleep by the time he back, so Stevie busied himself cooking soup for both of them and trying not to make any noise. He settled in on the floor in front of the couch to watch _A League of Their Own_ afterwards, with the sound on mute and snicker bars to hold off the hunger.

He was watching commercials and contemplating moving Xabi to the guest bedroom and go to bed himself when Xabi woke up with a pitiful groan. “I’m taking up the whole couch.”

Stevie laughed. Of course Xabi was the kind of guy to be polite even after getting mullered. “It’s alright, you need it more than me.”

Despite Stevie’s comment, Xabi still sat up, movements slow and full of ache. Stevie took up the space next to him.

“Anything hurts?” Xabi shook his head. “Well, don’t hold back if it does. You’re getting two full weeks worth of massages from dear old Gerrard here.”

Xabi tried to laugh, but the sound came out as more of a cough. “I am truly blessed.”

“Oi, there are people who would kill to have these hands on them.”

“Themselves, probably.”

And at that Stevie couldn’t help laughing his hardest before he sobered up. “But, seriously, if you need anything, let me know. I don’t want you to pull a valiant knight act on me and try to deal with the pain all on your own.”

Xabi shook his head. “You shouldn’t have to go through all this for me.”

“I told you, I don’t mind,” scoffed Stevie.

He looked Xabi right in the eye and Xabi looked back with the same intensity, before something softened in the corners of his eyes. He looked like he’d just realised something, and Stevie wondered what it could have been he found in his face.

"I’m sorry," said Xabi.

“It wasn’t your fault. You don’t have to apologise for a miss directed spell and an accidental crash into Lampard. In fact, you should be proud of that. He had to get a new broom afterwards,” Stevie didn’t add that so would Xabi.

“I know, I meant sorry for this,” he said and he grinned, lemon bittersweet, before he leaned in and kissed Stevie.

It was a good kiss, as far as a kiss could be good with one person injured and mostly immobile and the other frozen in shock. Xabi’s lips tasted overly sweet, probably from something they’d given him at the hospital. They reminded Stevie of a strawberry lollipop. He kissed with confidence, pushing Stevie to open his mouth and let Xabi french kiss him until they were both out of breath. Stevie leaned part of his weight onto Xabi, who moaned in pleasure first and then in pain, bringing them both back to reality.

“Fuck, I’d forgotten you’re injured. We can’t do this now,” said Stevie. He scooted back to give them both some space, but Xabi followed him easily.

“Does that mean we can do it later?” he asked, a twinkle in his eye and a smirk on his mouth that promised worlds of trouble.

Stevie groaned. He was pretty sure up until this moment he had plenty of good reasons on why he and Xabi shouldn’t become a thing, reasons he’d been living by, but by Merlin’s beard, he couldn’t remember a single one of them right now.

“We shouldn’t. The team and everyone—”

“I doubt the team will mind it much, considering Pepe and Nando have already given me congratulations on ‘tapping that ass’,” Xabi said, making finger quotes in the air.

Stevie froze. He had to admit, that did sound like something Nando and Pepe would say with their current idiotic love for American colloquialism. It didn’t make Stevie feel more comfortable, however, to know the whole team apparently knew what was happening between him and Xabi before they—or at least he—did.

“All Alex and Carra have given me are stern looks,” he said in the end.

“It’s not your fault, people just love me more,” Xabi flashed him the most gorgeous, dopey smile Stevie had ever seen.

If Stevie were to point out, years later, the moment all his defences and excuses crumbled, it’d be this exact one.

“That’s because you are a menace, Xabi Alonso,” Stevie rested their foreheads together and pushed out all the air in his lungs. “An absolute menace.” 

“Hey, you were the one who kissed me back with all that enthusiasm,” Xabi cheered. Stevie couldn’t help laughing at the sight of his happy smile. Xabi was always the most loud and carefree when he felt happy and relaxed and it made Stevie feel happy in return to know he’d caused that.

It was possible ‘like’ didn’t accurately describe Stevie’s feelings. He wasn’t going to look too closely into it.

“Well, _so-rry_ , but you’d almost died and I couldn’t just— I mean I didn’t—” he stuttered and stopped, unsure of what he even wanted to say.

Oh great job, Stevie. Get embarrassed now after kissing the guy you’ve been giving love eyes for the past couple of months. 

Xabi seemed to get it though, because he pulled Stevie to snuggle next to him on the couch. Go figure, Xabi Alonso was a cuddler.

“I am glad I kissed you. I was tired of waiting,” said Xabi, after a couple of minutes had passed, barely heard above the silence.

“Me too.”

Xabi didn’t sleep in the guest bedroom that night, or on any other for that matter.


	4. The European Quidditch Cup

They were losing by over two hundred and fifty points. This meant that even if Alex caught the snitch now, they would still lose.

They’d lost the league to the Red Caps, finished in third themselves, which was still a nice step up from last year. However, none of that would matter if they won today. They were at the finals of the European Cup, one of the biggest Quidditch events in the world, second only to the World Cup. They were also losing. Badly. By over two hundred points. Stevie still had a hard time believing this was all happening and that wasn’t all, in fact, a painful nightmare.

Alex was so high up in the air they could barely see her, trying to keep the Red Cap’s seeker running in circles since there was no point in going after the snitch right now. Closer to the earth, the Red Cap fans were rocking the stands. Their voices filled the air, took out the oxygen and made the world opaque. A storm was brewing in the black clouds, a heavy thunderstorm was about to hit and everyone seemed to be on standstill waiting for it. Stevie’s skin pricked, uncomfortable. He felt tired, beat. He didn’t know what to do.

They were at the finals, and they were losing.

Their dream was dying, drowning in the air, and he didn’t know what to do.

He wondered what would be worse: Ronaldo catching the snitch for the Red Caps or Rooney offering to end the match, which Stevie would, of course, have to refuse before he told him to fuck off. Stevie was tracking the Red Cap’s chaser with the quaffle, about to score another point for their team, when Nando came swooping in out of nowhere. He was above the chaser, flying upside down, and snatched the quaffle straight from her hands in a one-in-a-million move, before he passed it low to Xabi, who threw it from ten meters away and scored.

The goal was nothing, a mere ten points, but it meant something for their fans. You couldn’t tell them apart from the Red Caps as they were all wearing red, but there was something different about them. A Liverpool Horntail was always a Liverpool Horntail, from beginning to end. There was no way to explain it; they all bled red, but when you were a Horntail, you didn’t bleed the same way.

Stevie had always been madly in love with his club, which was why thoughts like these made perfect sense in his head. And it was moments like this one that reassured him he loved the right club, because losing in the final or not, their fans were still with them.

And they were singing now, the Horntails song, You’ll Never Walk Alone, one of the few muggle songs that managed to sneak into the wizarding world.

Now, Stevie was not religious. Even when he didn’t know a single thing about magic, he’d never shared his family’s catholic beliefs. After he received his letter from Hogwarts and learnt that each wizard tended to have some kind of belief of his own, Stevie’s thoughts didn’t change. He believed in himself and what he could do, and that was enough.

To him, seeing and hearing thousands of people chant for him and his team wasn’t a sign from the heavens, but it was a sign. The game was only over when someone caught the snitch, until then nothing was lost. They’d practiced for this, they’d dreamed about this. They couldn’t give up now.

“Nando, Xabi,” he shouted. His voice was pressed down by the sound of Istanbul roaring for them, but the wind carried it far enough for his teammates to hear him. “We’ve got to give Alex a chance. There are five thousand people cheering for us right now, lads. Let’s give them something to really shout about.”

Sometimes, no matter how much you work, practice and dream you might still fail. Sometimes there’s nothing you can do. Sometimes luck is against you, and fate has always been playing for the other team. Sometimes it was all lost before you even begin.

But there are other times when the wind is on your side, and the rain only feeds your fervour to win. Times when everyone’s hopes and expectations lift you up instead of dragging you down. Times when you have to give fate the middle finger and fight blood, teeth and tears for what you want. Istanbul was one of those times for them.

They reduced the difference between the two team’s scores to one hundred and forty points. They were still losing, but it was enough. Alex and Ronaldo came streaking down so fast you almost saw them. They were side by side, about to hit the floor in a perfect ninety degrees angle. Stevie watched, transfixed, as Ronaldo pulled in a few seconds before he hit the ground and Alex kept going. She hit the floor on her side, covering her head with both her hands. It was an ugly fall, not one third as bad as Xabi’s had been, but bad enough that she wouldn’t be able to play the rest of the match. Thankfully, she wouldn’t need to.

She lifted her hand as high as she could and grinned. There was a small golden orb trapped between her fingers. They’d won. They’d really won.

The rest of the night went by in a honest blur. The stands erupted into shouts, chants and singing. Stevie must have hugged dozens of people, was congratulated by dozens of others. He was in shock for a couple of minutes before someone from the team—Agger, probably—hit him in the back and said, “Go get us our cup, captain.”

It was silver and it already had their team’s name engraved on the bottom. The metal was cool and thin, reflecting the light like the most perfect of jewels. It had European Cup written on the front beneath the cup’s crest and in the back there was a horntail dragon that moved as it wished. It was beautiful. Stevie’s hands were shaking as if he’d been hit with a tremors hex. He could barely feel the cup when they handed it to him. He stared at it in awe for a second, and it was only then, finally, that he truly believed it.

They’d won.

He lifted the cup up with both hands. Confetti was released into the air, enchanted fireworks that made a perfect red dragon swoop in and roar for them. Bursts of white blinded them as their faces became part of documented history. The noise in the stadium, if possible, reached even higher levels. Stevie laughed, smiled and even let out a couple of happy tears.

Someone put a hand on his shoulder and pulled him slightly to the left. Stevie turned his head to see Xabi smiling at him, the same joy Stevie felt written all over his face. Stevie pursed his lips, making a comical kiss face. He didn’t expect Xabi to lean in and kiss him, but he didn’t complain. They felt invincible, like they’d just changed the course of the world. A kiss was nothing compared to the enormity of what they’d done, it was just a small way of showing their happiness.

He laughed afterwards and Xabi laughed with him. Nothing could ruin this for them right now, not even whatever people might say tomorrow when the pictures hit the newspapers. Stevie kissed him again, just in case there was any doubt on what the kisses meant. Xabi caught what he was doing, and pulled him in with a hand on the back of Stevie’s neck. Xabi had always been the more open one out of the two of them.

They partied in the locker rooms, and then they partied in a bar, and then they partied in the streets, too excited to even contemplate sleep. A little before dawn, Xabi grabbed Stevie’s hand and leaned in to whisper in his ear. “Let’s get out of here,” he said. Stevie didn’t hesitate to follow him.

He was mostly sober when he pushed Xabi against the wall of… someone’s hotel room. One of theirs hopefully—this was definitely their hotel—but Stevie was pretty sure he was wearing someone else’s jacket—Carra’s maybe? It was kind of big on him—and he couldn’t for the life of him remember if he’d switched the keys at some point. Of all the things he cared about right now, this was possibly the one he cared the least.

Xabi moaned against him, hands scrabbling against Stevie’s jacket trying to push it off so he could get closer. He looked so eager. His cheeks were flushed bright pink and his lips a plush red colour. Stevie wanted to breathe him in, trace every inch of pale skin he could get his hands on with his tongue and memorise the way Xabi sounded as he was taken apart. He felt a giddy rush of excitement when he remembered he could do all this.

He pushed away from Xabi to take out his jacket and his shirt and watched Xabi do the same before their lips met again. Xabi opened up for him without any resistance, letting Stevie take whatever he wanted, however he pleased.

“I want you to fuck me,” Xabi breathed out.

Stevie froze. They’d never done that before in the two months they’d been together. He looked Xabi in the eye, and Xabi looked back with his usual kind of unwavering determination. Stevie loved when he looked like that, like he was ready to fight the world and fight it with the kind of class usually reserved to high royalty.

“Okay. Okay, yes,” Stevie replied.

They moved to the bed, discarding their clothes along the way. Xabi moved until his back was against the headboard. His hands were gripping the satin sheets, well away from his cock. Stevie took a moment to just watch him. Watch the way the flush in his cheeks ran all the way down his chest, the way his breathing was a little too quick, the way he looked back at Stevie liked he wanted to devour him whole.

Stevie had shared a locker room with a lot of guys through the years, and even women once in Hogwarts, when the water in the girl’s locker room wasn’t working and none of the girls cared enough to wait for them to leave. The point was Stevie had seen many naked people, but Xabi was on a whole new level to him. He knew he was always going to be amazed at how handsome he was, even years down the line when they were both fat and wrinkly, Xabi would always look gorgeous to him.

He climbed onto the bed and settled in the V between Xabi’s legs. Their cocks rubbed together, making them both gasp, and Stevie took the opportunity to kiss Xabi again, moving away afterwards to leave a few scattered kisses against his jaw and down his neck. He nibbled the skin behind Xabi’s ear and watched him practically _keen_ , a shaky moan pushing past his lips.

Stevie moved away only for a second to take out his wand from his jeans and murmur a spell with the wand pressed against his palm before he discarded it.

Xabi watched everything happen and then raised both eyebrows at him. “You know an enchantment for lube?”

Stevie shrugged and flashed him a devilish grin. “I had to do detention once in the library at Hogwarts. You’d be amazed at the kind of books they keep there.”

“I bet that was the only—“ he stuttered, eyes fixed where Stevie had just pressed a finger inside of him without warning, “time you ever visited the library.”

“I am offended, Xabier. I really am,” he said. He proved his point by leaning down leave faint bite marks on Xabi’s hipbones and completely bypassing his dick, “and after I won us the cup and everything.”

Xabi’s fingers flexed against the bed sheets. He squirmed and pulled his knees up and then pushed them back down again so that he was lying flat on the bed. “The team won the cup.”

Stevie smiled and Xabi, despite looking like he was about to have a heart attack—a feeling Stevie reciprocated wholeheartedly and only managed to hide a little better—he smiled back. They’d won the cup. The rush of happiness that hit Stevie made him feel generous enough to ass a second finger, although he didn’t speed up his pace the slightest.

He didn’t want to hurt Xabi, but most of all, he wanted to take his time, wanted to drag this moment until it was stretched thin and tense between them, until they were both panting and so on edge everything else disappeared. He wanted Xabi and no one else.

“Stevie, Stevie, _por favor, yo_ —“ his voice was swallowed by a groan as Stevie rubbed against his prostate.

“You were saying,” said Stevie. He was teasing and they both knew it.

“ _Joder_ , Stevie. I’m not made of porcelain.”

“I know,” he leaned back to stare at Xabi, who stared back with blown pupils and red desire.

“Then fuck me, come on. _Cogeme, Stevie, de manera a que yo lo siento por semanas_ ,” his voice slipped between English and Spanish, trying to fit one of them around his tongue and not succeeding with either.

They did it without condoms because sex education had never been part of wizard culture and Stevie couldn’t get his brain to work beyond this, then and there.

He fucked Xabi slowly, like he wanted to, with shallow thrusts at first that gained strength as Xabi’s voice grew louder and they both lost control. Xabi was so tight around him, it was almost too perfect, with his hips resting on the curve of Stevie’s legs and their mouths mashed together. Xabi’s hands were on his back, on his neck, in his short hair, gripping it the best they could. Stevie couldn’t move too well like this, leaning so far into Xabi, but he wouldn’t have moved even if someone paid him.

Xabi came as soon as Stevie got a hand around his cock and Stevie followed right after. He slumped on top of Xabi while he tried to get his breath back and Xabi just petted him lightly on the back, his breath equally shallow and weak.

Xabi whispered something into his shoulder, so quietly Stevie almost missed it. Almost.

He pushed up with his arms so that he could look at him. “Did you just say you loved me?”

Xabi’s eyes widened comically. He looked like a deer caught in headlights, an answer all on its own.

“I love you too,” he said before Xabi could try to make a run for it. He hesitated and licked his lips while he tested the next couple of words. “ _Te amo también_.”

“Oh,” said Xabi, and then a huge grin spread across his lips. “That was so cheesy.”

Stevie rolled his eyes and moved off him so that they were lying side by side on the bed. “You said it first. And I’m glad you did it. I was tired of waiting.”

Xabi laughed, loudly, with his eyes closed and a clear line of his throat exposed that almost had Stevie leaning in to kiss it. He punched Stevie in the arm afterwards, clearly remembering the words as well.

“We won,” Xabi said. They’d both blurted it out countless times already, but it was something they never got tired of repeating, not until it properly cemented it in their brains at least.

“We did.”

“And tomorrow there are going to be thousands of pictures of us kissing— _twice—_ on all the newspapers.”

Stevie cringed. “Sorry, I should have asked if you were okay with that. I just, well, I just really wanted to kiss you,” he finished lamely. It was the truth, simple and embarrassing, but the truth nonetheless.

“I don’t care, Steven. They can say all they want to. I don’t care,” _do you?_ Xabi didn’t ask, but the question still hung unspoken in the air.

This was one of those things you had to think about, had to consider all the options and possible repercussions before you gave a real answer. It was something that a few years ago would have given Stevie a good headache and a small existential crisis, but today, it didn’t even make him pause.

“No,” he said.

They were Liverpool Horntails and European champions. If the world couldn’t handle them dating each other, then the world could go fuck itself.

Stevie had never really cared what others thought, anyway.


End file.
